KINGSTON, Ont. — A Montreal woman accused of killing three daughters and her husband’s first wife began to cry — just moments into her testimony — as she recounted her decision to give one of her children to the woman with whom she shared her husband’s affection.

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They have pleaded not guilty to killing Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti Shafia, 13, along with Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, who was Shafia’s first wife.

The victims, who had drowned, were found inside a submerged Nissan Sentra discovered June 30, 2009, at the bottom of a shallow canal in Kingston. Prosecutors allege the deaths were an honour killing, arranged by Shafia because he felt his daughters had shamed him by taking boyfriends, dressing in revealing clothes and disobeying him. Rona Mohammad wanted a divorce, jurors have heard.

The defence insists the deaths were an accident, the result of a joyride gone wrong after the eldest, Zainab, took the keys to the Nissan and drove the car towards the locks without her father’s permission.

Yahya testified Monday morning that she was not aware that Mohammad had ever asked for a divorce. For most of her hour and a half on the witness stand, she spoke clearly and calmly, usually looking directly at her defence lawyer, David Crowe.

But she began to cry early in her testimony when she described her decision to give her third-born child, Sahar, to the infertile Mohammad to raise as her own.

Yahya also testified that the family’s seven children were never disciplined physically, save one occasion when Shafia struck several of the children because they had returned home in the evening after their curfew.

She said Shafia’s typical tactic for punishing bad behaviour was to swear at the children and make a big deal out of small issues. She testified that he would talk about an issue exhaustively, to the point of irritating the children.

Yahya testified that after Mohammad’s death, the family found her diary, a document presented in evidence by prosecutors. In the document, Mohammad alleges that she was isolated and abused in the family, particularly by Yahya, and lived a miserable life.

Yahya testified that she glanced through the diary but made no effort to hide or destroy it.

Her testimony continues Monday afternoon.

The jury has seen reams of evidence from the Crown, including five pieces of a broken headlight from Mr. Shafia’s Lexus, which the accused said were indeed from his car after he followed Zainab and the others to Kingston Mills (Mr. Shafia said in court testimony that the girls had insisted on the joyride and he was concerned Zainab was driving without a license).

The jury has also heard testimony from dozens of people, including family members, social workers, police and forensic pathologists. They also listened to wiretapped conversations secretly recorded by Kingston police — discussions in which Mr. Shafia is heard saying “May the Devil s— on their graves!” among other condemnations of the girls’ “shameful” behaviour. Zainab had a relationship with a boy she was trying to keep secret from her family, court, heard. In an email to her boyfriend, shown as evidence in court, Zainab said she hoped they would marry. She also warned him to keep their relationship secret from her brother.